Mengzy Selects - 031 / January

Welcome to ‘Mengzy Selects’, a monthly video column which features five recently released tracks by producers and labels in Asia and across the Asian diaspora. Your host is Mengzy: a Hong Kong-based DJ and producer, PhD in musicology, music journalist, and co-founder of Feed the Dragon.

To watch the video version of this month’s column, click here.

‘Overbit’ is the dynamic lead single from Baalti’s upcoming EP, ‘Mela’, due to drop next month via Steel City Dance Discs. Field recordings of sound clashes in West Bengal and Maharashtra form the main sampling bank of this EP, which connects traditional Indian soundsystem culture with its UK counterpart.

Listen to ‘Overbit’ here.

Less than two months after launching her label WOE with partner Kade Young, Baltimore-based JIALING has hit us with a searing new self-release titled ‘BLIZZARD 大雪’. We’re particularly partial to track 3, ‘GLIZZY 熱狗’ with its spicy vocal sample, cheeky chops, and bass pressure.

Listen to ‘GLIZZY 熱狗’ here.

For its second label compilation, New Delhi-based Bøne.FM curated 18 tracks from producers across Asia, Europe, and South America. Breaks offering ‘SP1LT M1LK’ by ETRA is one of several highlights alongside Soru the Shinobi’s ‘Saturn’ and pralaya’s ‘Heavy’.

Listen to ‘SP1LT M1LK’ here.

Italian producers Lorenzo Dada and Leo Benassi shared ‘Island EP’ this month via Tokyo’s Mule Musiq. The celestial ‘Midnight Piano’ is our favourite out of the EP’s four gorgeous deep house cuts.

Listen to ‘Midnight Piano’ here.

From future funk producer Desire’s lofi alter ego Saturn Genesis comes ‘Virtual Novel’, Neoncity Records’ first release of 2025. Jazzy crooner ‘a better tomorrow’ is the mid-point through a nostalgic sonic story told across 11 tracks.

Listen to ‘a better tomorrow’ here.